(a) Field
The subject matter disclosed generally relates to electrical meter centers. More particularly, the subject matter relates to protection of electrical breakers undesired contact with external conductive elements used in the maintenance or assembly of electrical meter centers.
(b) Related Prior Art
There exists, in the electrical metering technology, commercial electrical meter centers, or meter stacks, for commercial and industrial industries, such as, without limitation, shopping centers, industrial buildings, condos, warehouses, oil and gas industries, and the like.
For maintenance and/or new installation purposes, customers, installers and/or repairmen are supposed to shut down the electrical power of the entire electrical meter center before installing a new electrical breaker (i.e., with line and load sides powered plated bus bars) or before repairing an existing one. However, for many reasons, and in many circumstances, customers, installers and/or repairmen cannot afford to perform such an operation. For example, it would not be time and cost efficient to shut down the electrical power of a bank implanted in a commercial center to install a new electrical breaker for a new pet shop adjacent that bank in the shopping center.
Thus, customers, installers and/or repairmen are frequently performing these tasks without shutting down the electrical power. Therefore, for example, when an installer wants to install a new electrical breaker above an existent electrical breaker in an electrical meter center, he needs to screw and unscrew one or more screw(s), and the odds are that screws may fall down and touch one or more of the three or more phases of the bus bars exiting from the top of that previously installed electrical breaker (load side). This presents high chances of creating short-circuits between two or more polarity powered parts (phase A, B, C, neutral or ground), thus resulting in damaging one or more electrical breaker(s), in damaging the entire electrical meter center and/or in injuring the customer, installer or repairmen.
There is therefore a need for an improved electrical protection for protecting electrical breakers and plated copper or aluminum bus bars from contact with external conductive (or non-conductive) elements, such as screws falling from above.
Even if the above example is directed to an electrical breaker protection for protecting electrical breakers and plated bus bars from contact with external conductive element, it is to be mentioned that there is also a need for protecting, in general, air insulated powered equipment from contact with external conductive elements, which are not necessarily parts belonging to electrical meter centers.